Many types of electronic components, such as mercury relay packages and transformers, for example, are comprised of a prismatic body which has a set of leads extending either from its bottomor from one or both of its sides or ends. Such components, referred to as "prismatic components" because of their shape, are often fabricated in a first factory and then shipped to a second factory for mounting on a substrate such as a printed circuit board. Typically, prismatic components are shipped from factory to factory in plastic shipping tubes, each holding as many as 25 components. Shipping the prismatic electronic components in tubes is very desirable since the components remain protected in the tube against physical damage and exposure to the elements.
After arrival of the component-containing tubes at the second factory, the components in each tube are fed to a component-placement device, such as a robot or dedicated machine, which places the components on the circuit board. Presently, there are advices which are capable of feeding a single size prismatic component from a shipping tube to the component-placement device. However, to feed prismatic components of a different size requires replacement of the component-feeding device with another capable of handling the different size component, often at a significant expense. Thus there is a need for a technique for easily feeding different size prismatic components.